Walking 2014km in 2014
January 27th, 2014 by Katherine Moller
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I guess it is a bit late for that by now anyway! I do enjoy taking time every January to look at the year that was and look forward to the year that will be. I like to set a few goals for myself, and I must say that I feel good about some of the goals I have set in the past. I am managing to maintain some of my past goals and feel like life is going a little smoother because of it!
This year one of my two big goals is to be more active. I am a fairly sedentary person. I love to play music. I love to read. I love to watch movies… Hmm… I also like being out in the world walking, but in the past have not fit it into my schedule all that well. Usually when a person says “I didn’t have time to” it really means “I didn’t make time to”. This year the goal is to make time to walk.
A friend of mine took part in a challenge last year to walk 2013km in 2013. I heard about the challenge in about October, so decided to wait for 2014. The way I am tracking my walking is with a pedometer. I put it on first thing in the morning and then write down my steps at night. I am currently using 1300 steps to be the equivalent of a km, but have not yet measured to make sure that is accurate. My friend (who is taller than me) uses 1220 steps (which she has measured), but her legs are longer than mine, and I am sure her stride is longer. In order to walk 2014km in the year, I have to walk 5.5km every day. It sounds daunting, but is not too bad because my daily incidental walking is included. Also, you can use equivalents, so if you do another activities, you can check the table on this page http://www.10k-steps.com/content/pedometer.aspx?owt=1 to find out how many steps you get to count. As of yet, I have only been walking, but plan on using equivalents in the project as well.
One of the things I like about this challenge is that I don’t have to walk an hour all at once necessarily. Because I am counting steps, everything counts. When I get up to go get something in another room in the house, I will take an extra trip around the house to add on some more steps. It all adds up in the end. If I have a short break between students, I now go for a 10 or 15 minute walk instead of sitting in my office chair because there isn’t enough time to accomplish anything… It is always easy to find excuses not to exercise, and this removes some of them!
So, this is where I am so far:
Goal – 2014km
To date – 155km
To go – 1859km
photo credit: Mr. T in DC via photopin cc
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